Brother XII Affair Transcribed by Jennifer Bolstler, Vancouver Island University – February 24, 2015

[recording starts]

William Barraclough:...by the sea a few miles south of Nanaimo. With monies mostly in gold coin, acquired from disciples of his cult, he purchased property including Ruxton Island, De Courcy Island, and 400 acres on Valdes Island, creating the Aquarian Foundation and assuming the name of Amiel de Valdes, known also as Brother XII.

Many articles have been published about the enterprise. Also pictures are available of some buildings constructed. Also of the ship Lady Royal that he acquired in England in 1930 and sailed it to Cedar. The ship played a prominent part in the Foundation's workings. It was reported Brother XII died November 7th, 1934, but proof of where he died, to our knowledge, is not established.

The following recorded account is by Mr. Victor B. Harrison of Nanaimo, who acted as legal advisor to some of the disenchanted victims of the foundation. He tells of some incidence connected with the case. This is William Barraclough speaking. Introducing, Mr. Victor B Harrison.

Victor Harrison: [I'm here to] speak on Brother XII. A very notorious character who came here to Nanaimo. He first landed in Northfield and rented a house from a Mrs. Reynolds, if I remember. No relation to the newspaper family Reynolds who lived in Nanaimo. I think her name was Peggy Reynolds. The first I ever heard of him was this lady, Mrs. Reynolds - Peggy Reynolds, came into my office one day and told me about Brother XII. His real name was Edward Arthur Wilson. He was born in England, the son of a clergyman in the Catholic Apostolic Church. He had married a princess as he said from India, from Kashmir India.

However, to continue the story of Brother XII, she said, "He owes me some rent and I'd like you to collect it." I forget the amount; it wasn't very much. She said, "He keeps on promising to pay me this money, he's writing all the time, he's writing many quantities of paper all over; he's constantly writing," she says "you get an enormous amount of written material. And he said 'I'll pay you,' he said 'some day I'll pay you every dollar' he said 'I have no money just now, but I'm starting a new religion.' " is what she said " 'Then I'll have plenty of money.' "

So I wrote a letter to him, and she came in a few days after [unintelligible] and said "This Reverend Wilson, the tenant, paid this rent to me," she said "I appreciate you getting after him." and so forth, so she said "What do you I owe you?" I forget what I told her. I think the collection was 8 or 10%. I've forgotten. 3:35 So I heard no more of this man. Except stories came in to me from time to time, that he had bought 145 acres at what they called Cedar-by-the-Sea. And he tried to buy an area of about the same size from the Bakers who owned at one time the Dew Drop Hotel on Haliburton Street. That deal did not come off, but he did buy the 145 acres, so the story came in, and these peculiar people were in town. He was forming a new religion it seems.

And [long pause] I heard many queer stories about this group of people. I got acquainted with some of them because they used to come to a little restaurant, which was over that tobacco store on the corner of Commercial and Wharf Street.

Barraclough: Billy Grey's tobacco store.

Harrison: Yeah, it was Billy Grey's tobacco store. There was a two story building on the corner there, stretched quite a way back and Mrs. Reed ran the tearooms there and I used to go there. And I went there on several occasions and that's way I get to know them all by sight. And some of them got acquainted with me and I [saw them away?].

[long pause] It seems that a rather bad lawsuit had commenced because there was a man called Ireland who had one time been on the detective force, the Pinkerton's in the United States, and he had joined the group. And he was in the big central building out by Cedar- on-the-Sea, and he complained that he wasn't getting his salary. He was the bookkeeper for the concern. And he put in a slip, it seems, on the books to show that he was getting his salary, put a correct entry into arrears and took the $10,000 arrears of salary, and the result of which the Brother XII, Amiel de Valdes, as he was afterwards called arrested him for embezzlement or fraud or something of that kind. 6:12 And he was being tried before the then police magistrate of the city, C. H. Beevor-Potts [Charles Herbert Beevor-Potts] where he held court at that time in the City Hall building at the corner of Bastion and Skinner Street and my office was right across Skinner Street, right opposite this police court. And the police station was next door to that with an alley running through.

I heard many stories affair in the police court but I didn't see much of it, actually. One day, I'd heard, of course, what it was about. And Mr. Cunliffe, F.S. Cunliffe, he was a lawyer who's now passed away, he was acting for Brother XII, and Ireland to get back at the Brother XII he brought an action against Brother XII for obtaining some $25,000 from Mrs. Connally, Mrs. Mary Connally.

Barraclough: Yes, I remember Mrs. Connally.

Harrison: She would get... Her family came from Virginia, she was a very wealthy person it seems. And he had met her at hotel in Toronto and got $25,000 out of her on the representation that he required, he required this money to build a place called Greystone, a stone building on the De Courcy group of islands, which he had obtained from, I think the Flewett estate; I just forget the people he bought it from. And there were two islands north and south of it, Ruxton and Plyades [i.e. Pylades]. He owned one, I think Ruxton, I think Pylades was bought by some people called Roberts. 8:04 However, [long pause] this action came for trial, I think it was adjourned and tried several times. And I wanted to see Sergeant Russell, who was in charge of the then Provincial Police, and I walked in through the alley way by the old police station and came in the side door into the police court. The police court was jammed with all people of different kinds just to see what was going on. And there was Beevor-Potts sitting up on the bench and he was the lawyer for the prosecution, a man who has now passed away by the name of Morton. And he was a man who had no belief in these mysterious things that Brother XII was dealing with. He said he had no fear of spirits or ghosts or any of that kind.

So I was just watching it, trying to get Sergeant Russell's eye to tell him what I wanted, and I saw Mr. Morton, the lawyer, collapse on the bench and four or five people collapse and they fell to the floor. I thought this was a very extraordinary performance. And from out of the audience came Brother XII, strode across the police court floor and held out his hand to shake hands with me, and he said "This is an awful state of affairs," he said, "they're trying to prosecute me," he said, "but there's nothing in it, and you are going to be appointed by the crown to prosecute this case." I said, "Don't talk to me, go away. I don't want to be bothered with you." And he then retired and went back into he audience. Beevor-Potts was very much disturbed and in a rather shaky voice he managed to say, "This court is adjourned." 10:03 Barraclough: Mr. Harrison, before you go any further, could you give us a little more detail about why people fainted or passed out down in the court there?

Harrison: Well that was some mysterious- They claim it was a mysterious part of the Brother XII. He was the son of a hypnotist or what you might call him, I don't know.

Barraclough: Do you think he really hypnotised them?

Harrison: Well I think some people are subject to hypnotism, there's not a doubt about that. Though I don't think Mr. Morton would be, but still he went down; he was the first man to collapse. And however, the next thing I heard, if I remember rightly - it may have been before that time or after, I cannot remember - but they came to my house, a delegation of the followers of Brother XII. The leader of the delegation was a Mystery-Man, as they call him, from Florida and several others, and they came into my office and said "We want to put a proposition before you" and they explained to me the various things that had happened there while they lived under the influence of this Brother XII who was the leader of this colony. They pointed out that he had a new religion which they had joined and in which they placed great confidence.

It was to the effect that all people born in this world must be born under the correct signs of the zodiac, and they must not only be born themselves under the correct signs, but their parents must be also born under the same signs, and the 'houses' as they call them must be in conformity with the requirements of astrology. And unless you were born under these signs, you would never amount to anything. You would be an 'astrobrat', and once an 'astrobrat', always an 'astrobrat'. You could not help yourself. You'd live and die in this world, and they'd bury you and they might speak well of you or as they case may be, but you'd never get anywhere. But those who were born under the right signs, as given from astrology, would become great and leading people in the world. And they pointed out that all the living people of the world had been checked on and they found it conformed with that theory of the Brother XII. 12:34 I might say I had heard of this before, and I had visited Mrs. Phillips who had rented from me what they call Hedley Park. I was one of the executors of Hedley Park with George E. Church of 55 Wall Street, New York, and we were both executors of the estate of old General Faulkener-Dickinson who died out there and he left this, and we were in charge, or he had put me in charge of the building to rent or dispose of it.

Barraclough: And this Hedley Park, where was that.

Harrison: Hedley Park's at Nanoose Bay.

Barraclough: Oh, Nanoose Bay.

Harrison: And it's a very nice place. And I had been out there, as Mrs. Phillips had called my office to talk to me and give me a cordial invitation to come and hear something of this extraordinary belief, connected of course with the Brother XII who I hadn't had anything to do with at that time, and who had this colony at Cedar-by-the-Sea. And she had been there and she was a member of the organization, and that she before that had been ...[grunts]...she wrote the column on astrology for the San Francisco Examiner, one of the Hearst papers in San Francisco, and she'd been a graduate of one of the colleges down there and she was a very learned and able person I thought.

So I went out to visit her, and I came to the house - and she rented this house from me - and I chatted to her [about late rent?] because we weren't worrying about renting the places, we were going to sell up the estate which we did later, and dispose of the thing. And I hadn't done that just yet because Mr. and Mrs. Church were coming out from New York, which they did later on. But in the meantime I had rented this to this lady and she had the large room, when I came in, with round tables. I suppose there was half a dozen in this large room at the house on Hedley Park, and there were maps and signs of the zodiac and all this kind of thing in the room, and this was her room of study.

And she went over the whole theory and talked to me about what I've already mentioned about the signs of the zodiac and people being born under them, and if not they were 'astrobrats' and would get nowhere. And she pointed out the great people of the world, and named a lot of them, including the Saviour Himself and Caesar, and one of the great favourites was Pythagoras, the ancient Greek, and a number of other ancient Greeks. They got their birth dates from history. And George Washington, and I don't know, all the great characters of the world, and the great inventor Thomas Edison and all these people, and they all were born correctly according to the signs of the zodiac and their parents were in line the same proposition and were born according to the 'houses', as they called it in the heavens, and that's just all there was to it. And their children would be great people IF they were born according to the signs of the zodiac, if not they would be 'astrobrats' like the rest of mankind. Now, there's the theory of his religion as it was explained to me.

So when this delegation from the Aquarian Foundation came to my law office in Nanaimo to see me, I knew something about the activities of that organization and I knew of Mrs. Phillips and I knew the theory of their religion. They roughly said "We are in revolution against the Brother XII. We are here to have this colony, to get your advice to see what we're to do. We've considered all the lawyers here and in other places and have decided that you're the man that will fight. Now will you act for us?" I said "Well, certainly I will if you've got anything to fight about". "Yes we have". 16:49 And Mrs. Connally said how she'd given $25,000 to the Brother [unintelligible] after seeing him for about an hour or less than that in the hotel in Toronto, and old Barley, Alfred Barley, who was graduated Oxford and was born in England and knew the Brother XII and his father when he was a boy there, and had given him 18,000 odd dollars and his wife had given him some money, she had been an English school teacher. And how he bought the island - the De Courcy group of islands - and this land, the 145 acres at Cedar-by-the-Sea and built these large buildings, and put in an awful lot of money. And he raised all this money from various of his followers, including one of his followers, a big powerful man by the name of Davis or Davies, he'd been a sparring partner for Jack Dempsey at one time and he looked the part. To my surprise he was more under the influence of these mysterious carryings on of Brother XII than most of them.

And then there was poor Mrs. Phillips. Mrs. Phillips wasn't there but Mrs. Sarah Tuckett, she was an old lady of about 80. She'd been a school teacher in the states of Oregon and Washington all her life practically. She had been born in New York State, I think it was, in New Jersey, and had been very clever in her school work and at a very early age had graduated with proper degrees for teaching in the public schools of the United States and had moved out to the West coast and had spent her life teaching, and had got a very good salary and she had money that she kept from her teaching days. She'd been injured in an accident in San Francisco and was quite lame. This happened when she was a young person and the doctors had not made a very good job of her broken limb - leg - and she was lame and would remain so, she said.

There was the story of Rudy, they told me, we'll just call him Rudy, that wasn't his name, we'll just say his name was Rudy. Now these stories were something like this: Here was Mrs. Sarah Tuckett, she said "I joined the colony. I had been a great teacher, not only in the public schools all my life, but," she said "I firmly believed in religion and I taught Sunday school almost all my life." And she said, "When I heard of this wonderful man, the Brother XII, who had been down to California," she said "I decided that I should join his colony up in British Columbia and turn my money over to him." Which she did and she then made an agreement and arranged to turn over her monthly income from the school board or school authorities of the United States. This was her life pension, I don't know how much it was but it was a fairly good pension. 20:19 Now I said, "What is your story? What is your complaint?" "Well," she said, "it's rather bad. You know I had this money and I turned it all over to the Brother, and then just lately," she said, "just a short while ago my relations in New Jersey" I think she said "or Connecticut wrote to make inquiries in regard to me, and I found, I heard of this letter at the colony. The letter had been coming out our organization and it was at the head office at Cedar-by-the-Sea." 20:53 And she said "Then, quite a time went on and I heard nothing more, but," she said, "last word got through that they had been writing again to inquire about me, if there was such a person, to hear something." And she said, "Then what happened was this: The Brother came to me one day and said, 'Now Sarah, do you still want to help the great cause?' "

She said, "I most certainly do."

" 'Would you give your life for the cause?' "

"I most certainly would."

" 'Would you be prepared to pass away and pass into the next world to give us the information that's required?' "

"Oh, most certainly I would. I would do anything to help this great cause on and the great work you are doing. The great work," she said, "that you are doing for mankind in general in this world," she said, "because we'll all belong to you someday, everyone. All right.

So he said, 'What you're to do is to, that little cottage we're built up on that little hill,' " she said " 'and every evening the boys,' " she says, " 'they will come and bring your food there, and you will live in that cottage. No one will bother you and you're to live there. And,' " she said, " 'You can live and sleep there and you'll get fed there and whatever you want to eat will be brought to you in a basket and put on the front veranda of the little cottage.' And he said, 'At the right time, you are to go down to the harbour, right to the waterfront, and the boy will take you down and put you in a small row boat, and you would sit in the back of the boat,' he said, 'and he's to row you up and down, up and down, just outside the lagoon. At the right moment, throw yourself backwards right into the water. Just throw both hands up and down you go.' "

"Well then I'll drown, won't I?"

" 'No, you will immediately rise, your spirit will arise immediately from the water. Your body is nothing; what is your body? And then when your spirit arises it will go across into the heavens, way beyond the clouds. And when you get there, you are to look into Heaven and see what's going on and all about it, and come back and tell the Brother. Are you willing to do it?' "

"I most certainly will." she says. "All that will be just as you say?"

" 'Most certainly yes, I know that.' " 23:14 So they took her up and showed her this room, this nice little cottage was built there. And then later on, towards the evening, was coming Zee - Zura de Valdes, who was one of the wives, the second or third wife I don't know which, of the Brother XII - came up and spoke to her, and after a long while of [thinking?] together about all kinds of various religious subjects and whatnot, she said, "Now remember, you are ready to do what the great Brother has told us?"

"Oh certainly, yes."

"The boy will come in a few minutes. He'll be up here and he'll guide you down."

She was very lame, so you always had to guide her. She had difficulty walking up or down the hill. She practically couldn't do it without assistance.

"Then you're to get in the boat, and remember, at the right time throw yourself backward, have no fear, down you go."

"But I will drown, the Brother said I would."

"Well of course you'll drown, but you'll immediately arise and your spirit, and away you'll go off into the heavens, way beyond the great white clouds. Then look in and see, see what is going on in Heaven. And you'll immediately come back and tell all about it, explain the whole thing to the Brother and everything will be grand. That's your great service. Are you willing to do it?"

"Oh, I most certainly will," she said, "I'll do it most decidedly. I'm only too anxious to do it. You know I've been a religious teacher all my life."

And she said to me: "You know, it's a strange thing. All my life I've believed that before every good Christian dies - or good person dies - a little voice, a silent voice, they hear what I'd call a silent little voice calling them. That voice calls you. When that voice calling you, they're calling you to Heaven and then you die and away you go. That is what I've always taught, I've taught that, the silent little voice that called you home," she says, "I've taught that for years and I still believe it. And you know in that boat, the boy came that evening, and rowed up and down, up and down, and it was night time of course," she said, "very dark. It wasn't jet-black, it was early in the evening, but quite sufficiently dark to see with some difficulty. But," she said, "I kept thinking of what my duty was, to perform this great act, to save the colony and eventually save the world and let us live as Heaven lives, on Earth as it is in Heaven," when she said, "I could not throw myself back. To my surprise I could not!" And she said, "I'm afraid I couldn't do it. I tried several times and the young fellow rowed me up and down and all outside the room. Yes, the water's very deep there but that makes no difference," she said, "I was determined to carry out the great duty which was placed before me." 26:08 So then [she] said, "All right, I can't make it." she told the boy, and he rowed her into shore, and she got out of the boat and he helped her up into her cabin. So she was sitting there in the little cabin and worrying a bit about it, because she kind of hadn't made good on this proposition, and someone knocked at the door, and immediately entered Zura de Valdes.

And Zura said, "Well, Sarah you didn't make it."

"No, I'm very sorry, I didn't. And she prayed and prayed with it, and she and I both prayed and I said 'Oh, if I can only make it', and she was kindness itself to me and everything was wonderful. I was to do my level best and bring all my strength together."

"And the boy would be here tomorrow evening, and every evening, until you go over and let it be soon. And do not fail." she says.

"No, I will not if I can possibly help it. I shall certainly act bravely and according to the way I'm supposed to act."

So Zura went away, and next evening the boy came up and he helped her down the hill. And she got in the boat and started to row up and down.

She said, "I tried. I even prayed for the little voice; I prayed most earnestly. I begged the Almighty, 'Send...let me hear the little voice, I will go'. But I could not throw myself back. I was sitting right at the back of this little, flat boat," she said, "but I could not throw myself over." she said, "I could if I [rightened?] up, but still I couldn't because I hadn't the mind to do it. I hadn't heard the voice and I knew it wasn't my time! That was really what was worrying me."

So she rowed ashore and Zura came up, and she talked to her at great length. "You're still here. You're still here you know, you haven't carried out the great work."

"No," she said, "I'm afraid I have not. I was almost in tears," she said, "because I'd failed so badly."

She said, "One more chance. This will make your third night, now tomorrow night you must make it."

"Oh, I certainly will if I can." she said. And so then, after a long lot of talking, she explained to me - blabbering and one thing and another. The boy came up the following, the third evening if I remember right, and he rowed her up and down and she couldn't make it, although she did her best. Then the young fellow helped her up back into the little house. 28:26 Then there was a violent knock at the door, and in burst Zura. Zura de Valdes said, "Well Sarah, you've failed again"

"Oh I'm so sorry, I have but" she says "Zura I will not fail again."

"You dirty, low cur" she said, and she swore at her and called her "you dirty, back-sliding..." the most awful language she used at me "You dirty coward with no value whatever. Look at you, you're just like an old wreck! You're lame and you're miserable ol' carcass is ready to fall to pieces now with age, and what have you done in this world? Anything?"

She said, "The abuse I got was something scandalous," she said. " I broke into tears. I couldn't stand it anymore, I just lay on the bed and I wept." She said, "Zura, give me another chance, I'll never fail you. Give me another chance! Give me another chance!"

So there was a whole lot of talk along this line, far more than I'm telling you now, but that's sufficient to give you an idea of the way he got people under his control.

So, it was approaching toward the following day, the next day, and she was worried. Before it was dusk, it was quite late in the afternoon, it was still light. Someone came up on the veranda, there was a noise of feet, they burst in and here they were, Roger Painter was leading them, he's the mystery many, and Alfred Barley and his wife. And she gave me the names of all the others, the other man from Florida who was there too. He had been in the clothes pressing business, I think, very fine fellow he was, too. And his wife, a charming woman.

And this crowd of about six or seven, who were the same people, almost exactly the same, who were in to see me as a committee. They said to her, "Are you going to join us, or not?"

She said, "What do you mean? Join what?"

He said, "We're revolted, we're throwing out the Brother. He's going back on his word and he's left the colony and he's no good. The Devil has got him." Or words to this effect. The general explanation was that they were in revolt and they were going to break up the colony and take the Brother and throw him out all together, and we'd by Roger Painter and he'd guide them through until they found some other arrangements if necessary. 30:49 So that was her story. I got all that down in writing. And then there was the next story, the reason they were breaking up the colony, and she told me about the money and what she had left and all that. Then Barley came in, how he'd taken these packages and put $18,000 in "...all must be in gold. You will not put anything else but in gold. Paper money and silver money is of no value," he would say. And he kept at them and he went and got it all changed to gold except a small amount which he didn't get time to change, and the Brother cursed him for doing it. And he gave him $18,000, and he had a habit - he was a good bookkeeper himself, a methodical man - he put his initials on the package there so that particular package contained $18,000. I think his initials were put on and just 18, is my recollection.

Anyway, that money was put in the bow of the Brixham trawler known as the Lady Royal, because in the meantime, before this happened the Brother XII had gone to England and purchased a Brixham trawler, he said, for $10,000. This was a two masted schooner, a fishing schooner. And he bought that and he sailed that boat from England to the Panama Canal, right up to the islands in the Gulf here. And he tied up to one of the American islands there, Stuart Island I think. And the boat was unladen there, and they took stuff out of the boat for a long while and put them in among the rocks, they told me.

He brought with him Agate, a very large and powerfully built man, who he picked up at the Canal Zone, who was supposed to be related to the Brother XII. I don't think he was though. And of course between you and me [unintelligible]. And two San Blas Indians, who were the crew.

And the Brother XII was the navigator because, as old Barley said, when he was a young boy only in his teens his father put him in the British Navy, and he served his time and became a navigator. And a very able navigator he was. And during The War he took supplies from Norfolk, Virginia, to England and back. That was one of his main jobs, I think, during The War. And according to their story, that he admitted himself, that many years before that he'd been blackbirding on the Mediterranean, that is taking the coloured people from the African shore and taking them into Turkey where there were sold into slavery. That was a dangerous job and he finally got out of it. 33:36 Well, so far I am reciting to you the stories that some of them told me, and why they were in revolt and why they wanted me to start an action for them: to break up the colony, and to take their money and property away from the Brother XII. And Mrs. Connolly gave her story; I think I've more or less gave you [unintelligible] already. But there was another story which was very, very strong to the point of mysticism other things.

There was a man and his wife who came from the United states and joined the colony. Now, I don't recall a name, we just called him Rudy and his wife, we used that name. And she was a very fine looking young woman, she was his second wife I believe, and she was no more than in her early twenties, physically and facially a very fine looking and well-built woman; very attractive and very intelligent. Rudy seemed the same.

It seems that the Brother fell violently in love with this lady. And it seems that he put up a job with her, and she was to knock and complain bitterly about this... They were living then, of course, on Valdes Island - DeCourcy Island - one of the main islands of DeCourcy. They had a farm there, and it was a well-timbered island, a very fine island; it was at one time owned, I think, found by Captain Flewitt one of the pilots here in the early days. In any event, he arranged with her that she was to complain to her husband continuously about this island and what a terrible place it was - "...oh it's simply unbearable to live there!" and how she hated the Brother XII, "...couldn't stand him anymore," she said, "I'm right through with him".

So she kept this up and then she was, they both were to leave the island, and as soon as she left she was to come back and live with the Brother, and go up to his special house - he had quite a mansion built there - and live with him. So this kept up and up, and she'd complain to Rudy, her husband, and he said, "I can't do it, it's terrible," he said "I dare not, this is the place to be; it's a wonderful place. Closest place to heaven that I'll ever be in -" and all this kind of rattle. 36:30 So one day, now this is- one of them gave me the evidence, in fact it was Barley I think. One day they were both sitting - the Brother XII and Barley and another man, one of the followers, I think it was Painter - where sitting in the basement of this house that they called Greystone, it wasn't made of stone, it was a large wooden building. And while sitting there in the basement where they had the library, and they had a case of guns; six rifles, high- power rifles, and military guns he had bought from Eaton Company in...not Winnipeg, it was... However, I know that he bought these and I saw the bill of lading later on.

And he was sitting there talking when a knock came at the basement door. The Brother said "Come in!" The knock again. "Come in, come in!" he shouted. A knock again, and the door opened a few inches, about six inches. "Come in, come in, don't stand there and knock! Come right in, come in, you're welcome!" The brother of course knew perfectly well who it was; it was Rudy. So finally the door opened and he couldn't walk- he stood in the open door trying to walk- he staggered trying to hold on the door. "Come forward, come forward, don't be so afraid! What are you you shaking about?" He was shaking.

So he said, "I cannot- I cannot say, I cannot say!" he said, "It is too much, too much, I can't tell you, I can't say!"

"What is it? Is it that you wish to leave this colony?"

"I'm only afraid it's too true."

"Why," he said, "you're quite right" he said "you're honoured for making such a statement and you'll be honoured for leaving because it's your duty to leave this colony and we'll be glad to see you leave and we'll honour you out into the outer world again. It's all a part of our organization that we never hold anyone here if they feel that they should go back into the outer world." And he stepped forward to him [unintelligible] and he shook hands, then he began to feel better.

He said, "Well it's only too true, I'm afraid brother." he says. They always called each other 'brother', they always went... and all the women and men were all brothers. There was no such thing as sexual distinction. According to their theories, every woman is a brother, just as every boy- man is a brother. Every daughters and women, were all brothers; men and women were brothers. And that was always used between them; I found that in the conversation they were constantly calling one another 'brother'. Though you'd be talking to a woman or the two women'd be talking together. I'd visit afterwards that place many times, and had dinner out in the open with them there. Getting this story and getting all the evidence ready. 39:32 So, the upshot of it was, the Brother arranged with Rudy, as we'll call him, and to leave tomorrow morning. Leave tomorrow, "...you leave tomorrow," he said, "would that suit you?"

"Well," he said, "I'm afraid it would, I'm afraid it would, but...if I should leave."

"Well certainly leave! It's only right and you got your wife go with you, why certainly yes."

This is the way they filled him up. So the next day they got out the yacht, the launch, and I think it was called- I don't think it was the boat called Khuenaten, but it was a smaller boat, a launch just the same. And the Brother ordered them to put in a sack of food, and then he got the other man from Florida and put him in charge of the boat, though he wasn't a sea man, he knew nothing about a boat. "Now," he said- Rudy was put in and then his wife. "Now," he said, "take this boat down to a certain beach below Chemainus." They all knew where Chemainus was because they went there almost daily for their meals and banking and whatnot, and they also knew Nanaimo because Nanaimo was more or less their headquarters on Vancouver Island, although they kept their bank account in Chemainus. Or one of their bank accounts. 40:49 "So," he said, "Stay out 'til the evening. Just as evening becomes quite dark, go onto this beach and then let them off." And so they left, they saw them into the outer world. Very shortly after that, Mrs. Rudy returned and went and lived with the Brother in his house.

One day it seems, as it turned out, later on as I gathered the story together, which I will explain in a few moments, Rudy went to Seattle or Tacoma - one of these American cities which he was well acquainted with - and went to a hotel there with his wife, and in the morning his wife wasn't in the room. She was gone! The bed was empty and he was there, but no wife! Nobody! He phoned down below, he'd never heard of her. Made enquiries, no one knew anything about her. Then he got desperate. He got dressed and he went down and saw the police.

He was in such a state the police couldn't make head or tail of him, it seems. Then went and saw the district - a different set of police or sheriffs or whatever, authorities anyway and couldn't make much out of him and they thought he was out- been drinking or was out of his mind or something. So they asked him if he'd put something in the papers, so he put some ads - advertisements - in the Seattle papers to find the- this in the personal account asking her to return and everything would be all right. And if she read this she would know what it meant.

However there was no reply and got very, very much worried. So it dawned on him one day after I don't know how long, several days anyway, that she may have returned to this island in British Columbia, this DeCourcy Island. So like a wise man, he armed himself with several hundred dollars in Canadian currency and came back to Chemainus, which he knew, and made inquiries, but no one seemed to know what he was talking about. So he went to a police station and he saw this policeman in charge and he told his story but the policeman couldn't make head or tail of him. A man telling such an extraordinary story as that about his wife on an island was one too many for him.

So he kept at it and finally the office said, "I'll phone up the officer in charge, Sergeant Russell."

So he phoned up and talked to Russell a while and it seemed Sergeant Russell told him, "I was coming down that way and I'll drop in pretty soon and start right away."

So he said "All right, the Sergeant will be down." and in due time Russell came into the police station, told Russell the story. Now I checked this with Russell long afterwards, after [unintelligible] was over, and he said it was quite correct.

He told his story to him and Russell said, "I thought he was some kind of crank or there was something the matter with him. So I didn't know what to do with him. He was so persistent that his wife was on this island, and how he'd left and all this sort of thing, and how he went back into the States where he belonged, in some place in Washington State. Seattle I think it was." And Russell said "I said to him, it'll cost money for me to order a boat and a launch and go to this island as a policeman and that's going to run into money and what will I tell the Attorney General of this country if he said why all this expense for nothing?"

"What'll it cost you?" he said.

"Well, it might cost me a couple of hundred dollars anyway."

"Do you mean that? What you say?"

He says, "Certainly I mean what I say!"

And he pulled his hand right and out and set 200 odd dollars right on the counter in front of him. "There's the money, now" he said, "will you make good on that?"

So Russell told me, he said "What in the world am I to do? I had no intention to do such a thing, but I had to do it. A man putting it up like that. I'm a man of my word," he said, "and I gave him my word. So I hired a boat, I got a launch - police launch I think it was - and I got aboard and I got a police officer aboard - two officers - and we started out started out for the island."

I've missed a bit in the story. When Rudy couldn't find his wife and he advertised- Oh, this is the thing: He came out to the island before he went to the police station, he took a boat and he rowed to that island himself. And when he got there they seized him, denied she was ever there, and threw him in a cabin and gave him nothing to eat, adn in the morning they put him in a row boat and put the launch to tow the row boat and they cast the row boat off at Yellow Point. And he had great difficulty in getting back to Chemainus. He was a stranger and couldn't navigate very well.

So this time he came to the police officer. So, as the police boat was reaching the islands, the man on guard in the forts, because you must remember he had forts all over the island, dug down below the surface of the ground and lined with stone, and men were always there with rifles, parading up and down at all times. And with glasses scanning the ocean. And they'd see this launch coming and reported it back to the headquarters, to the house Greystone, where he was living at that time, and they told him the boat was coming.

"Who are they?" the Brother XII said.

And he told him, "It looks like police."

And he came out and he went nearly crazy. He put a great curse on, especially against Harry Pooley the Attorney General, and everybody else. And he kept up this cursing and this damnation so terribly that the boat was actually landed on the beach. And he told them, he told Barley to deny she was ever there, ever seen. And he ran, he was in such a hurry to get out of the way, he threw himself on his face among the brush. And he laid there motionless, as far as they know, until the police had gone.

So in the meantime, the police were on the trail leading up from the beach, and they met the policeman and they told Sergeant Russell himself and gave him his word. I think it was a secret word, a lodge word, he gave him that was true that the wife was not there, and gave his word that she wasn't there and never had been seen there and all this kind of thing. And the police withdrew.

Now she was in the house, upstairs in the attic which they put her in. They nailed the way up to the attic, they told me that. And left her up there until the thing was over. And the police had gone and came out. And they got her down out of the attic, put a ladder there and down she came, and he said, "Well, you've got to leave. You'll have me in jail yet and have us all locked up when the police raid the whole place."

Next morning- The police, of course, had gone away you see. So the following day he arranged to have the launch brought there and a sack of food put in and he put in charge this other man from Florida and several others to take this boat and to go down, this launch, and wait 'til nightfall and then as it got into evening go to this certain beach which they knew of below Chemainus, and put Rudy off onto the beach and let her go, and give her no money or anything else, she's got to get home the best way she knows how. So the boat- 48:51 He went- he said "Hide behind some of those little islands until this gets quite dusk."

So they did that, and in the dusk they took this launch to the beach and they put her off onto the beach. And before she got in the boat to leave the island, she threw herself on the Brother XII, showering with kisses and begging him to forgive her and to keep her back and not to send her away, and he became violent. He swore at her and he threw her down violently on the platform, or the float. He called her all kinds of foul language and said she would ruin him. The police would come in and arrest every body and make a lot of trouble.

Anyway, she's on the boat and they put her off on the beach and it was dark and she started to walk. She walked and walked as far as she could and getting more dusk all the time, and it got that dusk she couldn't see which way to go and she kept falling over the logs, apparently. So she stopped and screamed and screamed and no answer, so she walked again and then screamed some more. And on the bank she saw what apparently was a cabin, and the door opened and some men came out. They were Chinese wood cutters. And they came to her with some lanterns and they didn't know what she was talking about, so the foreman finally came along, and she explained to the foreman as best she could. And this Chinese foreman was very sympathetic to her. He thought she'd been out getting blackberries or at a picnic and got lost, so he brought her into the cabin and cleared out one of the rooms and wheeled in a bed and wheeled in some food.

And he said, "Here, this is yours. They're all for you. You tell me in the morning what you want me to do. It's too late tonight."

So in the morning they came in, the Chinese brought her some breakfast, and they treated her wonderfully well and the foreman said, "I'm ready to go with you anywhere you say."

"All I want to do," she said, "is get on the road."

"You want the road?"

"Oh yes."

So he took her to the path and he put her on the road. That was the main highway leading to Nanaimo. And she says, "Of all the treatment I ever got," she says, "those Chinese treated me better than anybody I've ever run across yet in this country." 51:04 So, in the early morning, the young fellow who delivered at that time the newspapers from Victoria to Nanaimo was coming along, was driving his car towards Nanaimo, and she stopped on the road and he took her aboard. And she stopped the car and this driver took her on the boat and he said "Where do you want to go?"

And she said "Nanaimo."

And he said "I'm going to Nanaimo". So away they went. They drove at a very fast pace and kept going, whenever- She scarcely spoke at all. "He thought I'd been lost out on a picnic, or something."

So he said, "Now," when he got to Nanaimo, "where do you want to go?" said "I'll drive you wherever you say. It's early in the morning and apparently you're a stranger."

"Well," she said, "I know the wharf and I know the post office in Nanaimo as I've often been there, leave me there."

"All right" he says.

So he left her off at the post office. So when she got there she waited and waited for the steamer to come in and she walked down on the wharf then, in hopes of getting on the steamer. And she had no money, and the steamer pulled out, the boat that is, the ferry that goes to Vancouver. And they launched Khuenaten with some of the brothers, some of the followers of Brother XII on it, had come in for the morning mail. And they got their mail and were just going, and she was still on the wharf - I don't think she knew where she was or what she was doing - I don't know.

But they saw her on the wharf and an argument started that she was on the wharf, and some of them denied it was her and the others said that they were perfectly positive that it was her. And they said it couldn't be because we put her out on the beach down below Chemainus last night. So they whirled the launch around and passed by the wharf again, and then it was her right enough, so they pulled into the wharf and got her aboard. And that's how they learned her story. That's how they found out.

"Now," they said, "we'll get enough money to get..."

"I want to get," she said, "going back. I'm going back to the States; I want to go to Seattle."

And they dug up enough money for her between them, to pay her passageway on the steamer and then take a bus into Seattle or wherever she wanted to go. So that's what they did and they went back to the island. 53:31 Now, this lawsuit finally came on for hearing before Chief Justice Morrison in the courthouse in Nanaimo. The late Mr. Cunliffe acted for the Brother XII and I acted for all those in revolt against the colony, which was practically them all by this time; there were no dissenters. And after a lengthy hearing, and all this material got before the court, the judge rendered a verdict completely in favour of the members for whom I brought this action. He gave judgement for Mrs. Connally for the money she'd advanced and for Barley, and he was even ordered to return the title of the islands and if he refused to sign them over the registrar would sign over the islands and all the other lands to members of the group.

So that ended that. And when I went down to the office, of all the things in the world, here was a letter. It was only addressed "Lawyer Harrison, Nanaimo" as I remember. I opened the letter and in it was a memoranda scribbled by Rudy and his wife, saying to this effect:

"Dear Brother XII,

We are so sorry. We have both talked it over. You are right, we are wrong. Do take us back to your colony. We will be good Aquarians and we'll do our best to serve the great cause that you represent."

Or something to that effect. So I got in my car and I drove down to the colony and I showed them that, and they had another letter addressed to the colony with a phrase in it begging forgiveness and everything they did was wrong and the Brother was right. There you are.

Many peculiar things happened there, too, and I can remember various incidents. One time he built a mystery house high up in a big, thick fir tree. It was so skilfully constructed - I know the carpenter who constructed it, and he's living yet, he's in Vancouver - and he built with strict instructions to tell no one where it was and never to discuss it. And it was so hidden in the trees that you could go right in, you wouldn't know there was a big room up in the trees. And they often talked of this mystery house, how the Brother would go up there. They'd very seldom see him up there; he would disappear and it was the only place he could be going.

So I said, "We must go and see that mystery house, before we get on with this trial, and know something about it." So we started out for the mystery house, a whole crowd of us. And as we gradually got among the timbers, getting closer to the house, the big powerful man who used to be a sparring partner, got weak. He couldn't walk any more, he almost sat on the ground. He couldn't keep on his feet. He kept looking back towards DeCourcy Island, which you could easily see from Cedar-by-the-Sea.

And finally we came to the first steps that go up into the tree, and they all held back. [chuckles] I had difficulty persuading them to come up. I said, "Follow me, be not afraid. We're in the lawsuit now," I said, "we got to show this court what it is."

So we went up and I opened the door and this room- and here was an empty room with a spring bed in it and a mattress, the only thing that was in the room, and a framed picture of the Incantation to Light, written by the Ancient Greek, Pythagoras. As I've mentioned before, they were very fond of Pythagoras and a number of other very- of the Ancient Greeks of about Plato's time: Demosthenes and Aristotle and such. And those wonderful thinkers of Ancient Greece were all recorded on the tables which Mrs. Phillips had made out to show that their birthdays coincided with the right position of the stars as designated by astrology. 58:12 As they had won the case and every particular with costs, the judgement was perfected on the courthouse records, and they should still be there and all the papers will still be on file in the court, the colony then largely broke up. So Mr. and Mrs. Barley, and several of the others including Roger Painter, went to Mrs. C. Brewers [Seabrewers?], Mrs. C. Brewers there, she went to California, I believe. I've heard about her since; she's a very nice person and a beautiful looking girl.

Barraclough: Do you remember Mr. Hobart as a member of the colony?

Harrison: Oh, yes.

Barraclough: When I was working in Rod Mitchell's office at the time they were selling the islands, I became well acquainted with Mrs. Connally, Miss White, and Mr. Hobart.

Harrison: Yes I remember Miss White. Miss White, I saw her on the farm, and I saw Mrs. Connally. I went, after the judgement was all over, and after these others had left for Oregon- Washington State, and they took up- they wrote me to say they'd taken up some logged off lands and had opened up quite a place there and I think they did very well. Poor Barley used to go down to Portland, it was not far from Portland where he used to go down every once in a while and take his steam baths to restore his health. He wasn't very well, it seems. I don't wonder.

[End of tape. Nanaimo Archives has more]